Vehicle monitoring systems are becoming more and more common as a means for providing situational awareness and collision avoidance. Such vehicle monitoring systems often include an electronic display to communicate information to a user (e.g., a driver of the vehicle). In particular, the electronic display may provide a view of a region adjacent to the vehicle to make the user aware of and to facilitate the user avoiding objects in the adjacent region.
A wide variety of electronic displays may be used in a vehicle monitoring system including, but not limited to, displays based on cathode ray tubes (CRT), plasma display panels (PDP), liquid crystal displays (LCD), electroluminescent (EL) displays, organic light emitting diodes (OLED) and active matrix OLEDs (AMOLED) displays, electrophoretic (EP) displays and various displays that employ electromechanical or electrofluidic light modulation (e.g., digital micromirror devices, electrowetting displays, etc.). In general, electronic displays may be categorized as either active displays (i.e., displays that emit light) or passive displays (i.e., displays that modulate light provided by another source). Among the most evident examples of active displays are CRTs, PDPs and OLEDs/AMOLEDs. Displays that are typically classified as passive when considering emitted light are LCDs and EP displays. Passive displays, while often exhibiting attractive performance characteristics including, but not limited to, inherently low power consumption, may find somewhat limited use in many practical applications given the lack of an ability to emit light.
To overcome the limitations of passive displays associated with emitted light, many passive displays are coupled to an external light source. The coupled light source may allow these otherwise passive displays to emit light and function substantially as an active display. Examples of such coupled light sources are backlights. Backlights are light sources (often panel light sources) that are placed behind an otherwise passive display to illuminate the passive display. For example, a backlight may be coupled to an LCD or an EP display. The backlight emits light that passes through the LCD or the EP display. The light emitted is modulated by the LCD or the EP display and the modulated light is then emitted, in turn, from the LCD or the EP display. Often backlights are configured to emit white light. Color filters are then used to transform the white light into various colors used in the display. The color filters may be placed at an output of the LCD or the EP display (less common) or between the backlight and the LCD or the EP display, for example.
Certain examples and embodiments have other features that are one of in addition to and in lieu of the features illustrated in the above-referenced figures. These and other features are detailed below with reference to the above-referenced figures.